Abbott unveils 'Bicentennial Blueprint' for Texas excellence

Updated 4:17 pm, Friday, June 6, 2014

FORT WORTH – Attorney General and GOP gubernatorial nominee Greg Abbott on Friday unveiled his "Bicentennial Blueprint" to create a new generation of excellence in Texas during the next two decades, starting with making Lone Star schools the best in the nation.

"We must build an even better Texas for tomorrow," Abbott said in announcing his plan to thunderous applause at the Republican state convention, a vision punctuated with tea-party goals now part of the Texas Republican mantra. "It is time for government to answer to you, not the other way around."

Under Abbott's plan, packaging many of the issues he has been touting during his campaign, Texas would improve its systems of education, health care, public safety and ensure the state remains No. 1 in job creation, all of which he said are keys to Texas flourishing when it reaches its bicentennial in 2036.

Abbott's afternoon speech, during which he talked about how he overcame the serious accident years ago to underscore his call for Texas to work toward a new level of greatness, serves as a supercharged GOP pep rally for his statewide campaign to win in the November general election.

"We can and we will make Texas No. 1" in education nationally, Abbott told the crowd, pledging to reduce the practice of teaching-to-tests in classrooms and to allow local schools "to get out of mandates from Austin, Texas."

Other elements that are on the must-do lists of many GOP and tea-party activists: reducing the size of state government, limiting state spending with a constitutional amendment, reducing property taxes and stopping the diversion of transportation funds to pay for other state programs.

"There are parts of Texas where a guy in a wheelchair can go faster than traffic," he said, promising his plan will build roads "without raising a single penny of taxes, fees or tolls."

"Elect me and I will get Texas moving again," he said.

Abbott also drew a standing ovation with a promise of a crackdown to secure the Texas-Mexico border, stop human trafficking and on domestic violence.

Before the cheering partisan crowd, Abbott also took expected shots at Democratic nominee Wendy Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth, for her pro-choice stance, her support of so-called Obamacare and their myriad differences on policy issues, many of them linked to controversial federal initiatives of President Obama who Republicans generally detest.

"We love this state too much to let the next four years look like the last six years under Barack Obama," Abbott said. "(Davis') prescription for Texas is more government. My prescription is more freedom."

"Abbott might have left his insider dealings for backrooms, but backrooms can't hide all the times he favored donors at the expense of Texans," Davis campaign spokesman Zac Petkanas said. "Whether its approving more than $20 billion in bond deals that financially benefit his contributors, shielding predatory payday lender buddies as they prey on military families or cashing in during his time overseeing the cancer research fund, Greg Abbott has no shortage of options to pick from when catering to political insiders instead of working for all Texans."